Brent Knoll, Somerset. From the Iron Age fort on the summit of this isolated little round hill, 457 ft high, can be appreciated better, perhaps, than from anywhere else the vast flatness of the Somerset fenlands and how very nearly they are still sea. As late as 1607 it became briefly an island when about 100 sq. miles of the area was flooded. It is best reached from the South West via a farm at the top of Hill Lane. The fort was used by the Romans and by Anglo-Saxons as a refuge from raiding Danes. The base of the hill is ringed by smart housing, some of it attractive. Brent Knoll church (Norman, 14th- and 15th-century) is famous for three bench-ends (probably 15th-century) showing the descent from dignity to hanging of a fox dressed as an abbot: the Abbot of Glastonbury lived locally. It has also a fine tie-beam roof, good Jacobean pulpit, a 1663 monument flamboyant even for that period, and more than usually grotesque tower gargoyles.